4. Coming to Closure

At the conclusion of your mentoring experience, you might want to plan to hold a closure conversation with your mentee. In this conversation, you and your mentee would talk about your experiences and what you both learned from being in a mentoring relationship. Holding a formal conversation helps to deepen the learning and enables you to learn more about what you can do to improve your mentoring skills.

Pre-closure Reflections

As you approach the end of your mentoring experience, there are some key discussion points you might find helpful to reflect on, prior to holding a closure conversation with your mentee.

• What was your mentee's biggest "aha?" What was yours?
• How can your mentee apply his/her new learning to other situations?
• Would you do anything differently next time?
• How will you and your mentee celebrate the conclusion of your mentoring experience?
• Have you considered having future mentoring experiences with your mentee? If so, how might they be different than this experience?

Closing In on Closure

Closure requires advance planning and reflection. If closure is to be a mutually satisfying and meaningful learning experience, mentoring partners must prepare and plan for it. Think about coming to closure under the best circumstance, as well as under circumstances that are less than ideal.

• Talk about your learning conclusion. A learning conclusion is a highly focused conversation about the specific learning derived from the mentoring experience. It is a no-fault conversation focusing on both the process and the content of the learning.

• Evaluate your relationship. What worked and was satisfying for both of you? What could have been better?

Here are some questions you and your mentee might discuss as you complete your mentoring experience through a closure conversation.

• Were your goals achieved?
• What did you learn as a result of reaching your goals?
• What else do you need to learn?
• What did you learn about yourself?
• What did you learn about mentoring?
• What worked well for us in our relationship?
• What did you learn as a result of the process?
• What might have been done differently for better results?

Starting the Closure Conversation

Here is an example of a mentoring conversation coming to closure. Notice that the mentor is still gathering feedback about the relationship and its level of success.

Mentor: "When we planned how our mentoring relationship would go, I suggested we spend our last meeting talking about what this experience has been like for each of us. Since mentoring was new for both of us, I thought it would be helpful if we each shared what we got out of this relationship.

For example, I would like to get some feedback from you about what I did that helped you meet your innovation goals; what worked, and what I could have done better in my role as your mentor. And I want to share with you some of my observations about how I saw you develop and some thoughts I have about your next steps.

Do you like that idea? Is there anything you want to add to what we talk about in this meeting?"

Ending the Closure Conversation by Celebrating Success

Celebration is a fundamental part of concluding a mentoring relationship. With young innovators, it may also be a celebration of achieving both your mentees and your goals for the relationship. That reinforces learning and signals the transition process that redefines the relationship.

• Look for meaningful ways to celebrate what you've both accomplished.
• Be sure to include opportunities to express appreciation as part of the celebration.

Module Recap

This module focused on the Cycle of Mentoring, beginning with preparing for a successful mentoring relationship, built on the critical components described in Module 2, and ending with some ways you might bring the relationship to closure.

As you proceed to Module 4, you will learn more about six specific characteristics that define an effective mentor and gain an understanding of the importance of listening and mutual respect in a mentoring relationship.